Bristol festival rejects Viagogo-bought tickets

Fans who attended Saturday’s Downs Festival in Bristol were advised not to present tickets purchased through Viagogo upon arrival.

The one-day music festival featured the likes of Noel Gallagher (pictured) and Paul Weller, attracting more than 25,000 fans.

Prior to the event, the Downs Festival posted on Twitter that all tickets purchased through Viagogo would be invalid as the resale website faces continued scrutiny in the UK.

On Friday, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced it was taking Viagogo to court for allegedly breaking consumer protection laws. The watchdog said that Viagogo had failed to make sufficient changes, following previous warnings, to bring it in line with regulations.

Ahead of Saturday’s Downs Festival, organisers said that any fan who bought tickets from Viagogo would be able to bring them to its box office on the day of the show, where they would be formally invalidated. Fans would then be able to purchase valid tickets directly from the festival.

The festival’s statement, posted on Twitter, continued: “We will be able to give you details, supplied by the Fanfair Alliance, of how to go about claiming your money back from Viagogo using the invalid tickets.

“We have to stand up to Viagogo and their unacceptable business practice. We believe that they take advantage of honest customers who instead of buying tickets at face value are (misled) into buying tickets at vastly inflated prices, which are in turn invalid. This has to stop.”

In a statement reported by the BBC, Viagogo responded: “The tickets sold on Viagogo’s platform are genuine tickets that have been sold on by the original ticket purchaser in good faith.

“Event organisers sometimes make claims that they will deny entry to people who have purchased resold tickets. These types of entry restrictions are highly unfair and in our view, unenforceable and illegal.”

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